And Mother of the Year goes to....Mama Hodge

And then I woke up, before I even gave my acceptance speech.

About 4 years ago Caroline spent months squinting, running in to things, if I gave her that dirty mom look meaning "you're going to catch it" she pretended she couldn't possibly see my face from across the room, and so forth. "I need glasses," was her common wail.  I finally caved and took her to the optometrist. $75 later she was declared to be the owner of perfect vision. Yup. That's my Hollywood bound Carebear.

So she gave up the charade, temporarily. It began again 2 years ago. I rolled my eyes and told her I would give it careful thought and consideration, the Easterman code word for "I've forgotten your request already." (Easterman is my maiden name, in case you wondered and my dear Daddyoski made that phrase famous).

She really has kicked it up a notch the last few months and Sunday's performance was worthy of a Golden Globe. I was actually torn, should I take her to the optometrist or Austin's really fantastic school for the blind? Glasses or a walking stick?

Today in Dr. Duke's office I made a disconcerting discovery. She is in fact blind. Very blind. So blind, I'm amazed she can read her music in orchestra or function on any level. She's almost as blind as I am and I put my glasses on if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night when you can't see anything anyway. I just want the darkness to be 20/20, what can I say?

After my jarring discovery, Caroline got one of her own. She's a serious dork in glasses. It is bad. She may be going to a government school this fall (McCallum Fine Arts Academy, so government school with pink frosting),  she may get in with the wrong crowd (at which point she is being promptly shipped to the most horrid convent),  but she will be a virgin by choice. It may not be her choice, but I don't think they make better birth control than Caroline's adorable pixie face behind a set of frames and a mouth full of metal and 2 sets of neon colored elastic bands. I offered to wax her eyebrows sympathetically as we went through every pair of glasses in the place. And finally, way off in the corner, we found a "vintage" pair, perfect small gold circles. "Mom, no way,"she protested," those are Harry Potter glasses. "

(Interesting. I'm not sure I'm capable of even grasping that description as my familiarity with Harry Potter is very limited, though my curiousity was recently piqued by a reference my sister-in-law made on Facebook to amazing food descriptions in the books which did motivate me to watch the first movie. After about 20 minutes of the first movie and no food, I was demotivated and had to turn it off but nonetheless, I digress; back to more on my phenomenal abilities in parenting teenage daughters).

Since she had tried on every other pair in the shop (and the staff was on hands and knees pulling bins out of dark recessed cabinetry), she finally donned the vintage pair and voila' it looked half way decent. Or to be more honest, it didn't look really hideous. So she ordered them and they'll be ready in a week.

I'm wondering if sight will have a profound change on Caroline; maybe she'll be a cheerful morning person. Maybe she'll always do a stellar job on the kitchen without being asked. That may be optimistic to the extreme. It'll probably mean in about 3 months she'll start begging for contacts. Hehehe. I could get her hard lenses and watch her enjoy that sandy feeling for a month while making every effort not to complain. That does sound like fun. And my mom card will get punched. I'll probably get Mother of the Year again.  Oh, yeah.